BUCKED IN THE YARN, NOT IN THE PIECE - LESSONS FROM THE COKERS
The emergence of a significant number of co-dependent and integrated activities associated with the development, growth and expansion of sail making and the production of twine in a small geographic area located on the border of Somerset and Dorset from the 17th to the mid-20th centuries is a fine example (referred to here as ‘the Coker Canvas Cluster’) of, what was to be later defined and universally accepted, as, an economic cluster. In recent years there has been considerable debate as to whether the cluster concept is something new (as Porter, 1979) might have us believe or “is it just a new word for a phenomenon that basically always existed” (Nordin, 2003). Indeed, traditional elements of economic geography have been recognised for a long time. Indeed, the British economist Alfred Marshall formulated theories in the late nineteenth century (Marshall, 1890) on the importance of active local actors working together in shaping successful economic development.
It was over forty years ago, however, that Michael E Porter, writing in the Harvard Business Review, first extolled the importance of economic clusters and competition based on location and geographic proximity and interdependencies (Porter, 1979) thus giving academic credibility and global acceptance of the phenomenon. In 1998 he returned to the subject with renewed vigour and analysis exploring its continued relevance of clusters to economic growth for countries, regions and business sectors highlighting the anatomy of the Californian wine and IT clusters and of the Italian leather fashion cluster as prime examples of this concept. Clearly, the shipbuilding activity on the Clyde, the motor engineering in and around Coventry as well as the metallurgical industries of south Wales must also be regarded as examples of different economic clusters. Inevitably this body of research work created a compelling framework that influenced government policy around the globe and stimulated a huge amount of research on the subject showing the benefits arising from this concept.
It is clear from the recent work by The Brookings Institute that economic clustering is still very relevant to regional competitiveness and development, albeit that some adjustments will be needed to improve the efficacy of polices and activities in the future. The Brookings Institute’s report was obviously written prior to the global COVID19 pandemic however it is already clear that economic clusters, based on locational differentiation and sector specialisations, will play an important role in the roads to recovery from this disease for many places.
It is, in effect, what destination management is all about - local differentiation, local collaboration and international reach.
How did the historic cluster of highly specialised, maritime-related and influenced, economic activities come to be so densely developed and remained in existence for such a relatively long, sustained, period of time in part of south Somerset/north Dorset? What makes it even more interesting is that this industry evolved in an area that is over 20 miles from the Dorset coast.
In many ways the ‘Coker Canvas Cluster’ conforms to the concept of a ‘imaginative community’ defined by Govers (2018) which he describes as, “imaginative communities the reinforce or build local character and civic pride, while at the same time captivating outsiders. Where community is seen as a social group whose members reside in a specific locality and a common cultural and historical heritage. Imaginative refers to the community using their imagination in order to envisage and accomplish creative, unconventional, original, inventive and – most importantly – uniquely local initiatives, projects, events, infrastructures or policies that reinforce the community and the way it is perceived by outsiders.”
This was clearly the case in the development of the sail cloth and rope industry and it can certainly be applied to the way in which the Dawes Twine Works project has been planned and delivered over the past ten years.
This is the story of how small rural communities successfully harnessed their assets to be come a world leader. Ultimately however their ability to remain competitive failed. The demise started in the 1850s with the development of power loom weaving. This stopped the handloom weaving almost instantly. Mechanisation took over and the second phase of economic development occurred based on factory production. This caused the smaller factories in the Cokers to be non-competitive and to eventually close, although not without attempts to diversify. The final nail in the coffin came with the change to steam powered ships and, despite, some heroic success in becoming the sails of choice for the new generation of super sailing yachts and the persistence of quality twine and webbing production, the local cluster faded.
As fate would have it one of the main causes for the demise of sail making in the Cokers had very close connections with North Coker. This was directly linked to the decline in demand due to steam power used for both naval and merchant ships. It was the Maudslay Engineering Company of Coventry (the location of another economic cluster) whose ‘Maudslay Marine Engine’ provided the power that enabled the S.S. Great Western to cross the Atlantic from Bristol to New York in 1837 – and Cyril Maudslay and family were later to become the owners of North Coker House. Over broadly the same period of time that the rope and sail cluster evolved and flourished in this area another economic cluster emerged centred on Yeovil – the manufacture of gloves. In the same way that Daniel Defoe had described the prevalence of the sail making in West Coker in ‘A Tour thro’ the Whole Island of Great Britain’ (1724-1727), he also commented on the dominance of glove making in the local economy.
Gloving had been recorded taking place in the area as early as 1212 and in accounts of 1327 it is clear that there were already family names reflecting glove-related trades – John Glover and John le Scynner, for example (Robbins, 2007). The lead company was Pittards of Yeovil, established in the late 18th century and still active today. In 1952, Ken Tulk (quoted in Lewis, 2019) estimates that 50% of all glove production in England happened in Yeovil. The importance of the trade gave rise to the fact that Yeovil Town Football Club are known as ‘The Glovers’. It is likely that this gloving economic cluster exhibits the same characteristics as are present on the ‘Coker Canvas Cluster’.
The conservation, restoration and opening of the Dawes Twine Works as a community asset is a fitting tribute to the intelligent, enterprising and highly skilled and innovative individuals and businesses who make Coker Canvas a global brand.
The geography of this historic cluster is an area of approximately 200km²; it is the shape of a dilated pentagon whose limits were defined by the villages of (moving north east to west of Yeovil) Nether Compton, Yetminster, Sutton Bingham, Halstock, Hardington Mandeville and East Chinnock and embracing the key centres of sail and twine making: East, North and West Coker - these three villages that gave their shared name to, what was to become, the eponymous, world famous, ‘Coker Canvas’. Significantly, in 1969, Little writing in ‘Portrait of Somerset’ refers to this part of South Somerset as ‘Coker Country’ likening its importance in the development of sail cloth as being as important and the equivalent to the impact of the engineering and shipbuilding industries on the River Clyde in the late 19th century. If this was the case then the areas contribution to the global dominance on the high seas of the British Navy and the success of global trade during the 17th and 18th centuries must have been very significant (Hore, 2004). There was certainly an intensity of activity even when Daniel Defoe undertook ‘A Tour Thro’ the Whole Island of Great Britain’ between 1724 – 1727 he is reported to have observed that, “West Coker was white with the yarn and cloth bleaching in fields by the sun.”
